Project Summary Overall Component UCLA Center for Health Improvement for Minority Elders (CHIME) proposes continuation of a research and mentoring program initially funded in 2002, that will contribute to the reduction in health disparities for minority elders by training minority faculty who will advance their careers by conducting minority aging research. CHIME has 5 specific aims: 1) to develop the research infrastructure needed to improve the health of minority elders through the development, implementation, and evaluation of community and health sytem interventions designed to mitigate health disparities which incorporates two of NIA's areas of scientific focus: i) research aimed at understanding and modifying organizational or individual behaviors associated with positive and negative health outcomes in later life and ii) research on factors that affect population aging, as well as the consequences of population aging; 2) to conduct rigorous analyses of existing data sets to identify community, health system, and person level correlates of health disparities to inform the design of interventions or health policies to mitigate health disparities; 3) to contribute to the development, evaluation, and dissemination of measures that can be used to track health outcomes or measure critical social, behavioral, and economic predictors of the health and the health-care of minority elders; 4) to build on CHIME?s 15 year track record of successful academic advancement of minority faculty through mentorship and support of their conduct of independent research on the health of minority elders; 5) to broaden both existing and new partnerships with communities to expand the pool of potential minority research participants and the beneficiaries of the findings from both the research conducted under the auspices of CHIME and other funded research. CHIME will address these aims through activities that are organized in an Administration Core (AC), a Research Education Component (REC), an Analysis Core (AnC), and a Community Liaison and Recruitment Core (CLRC). The AC and REC in collaboration with the External Advisory Group will select pilot studies and organize the mentorship of RCMAR Scientists, CLRC will assist with recruitment and AnC will provide highly innovative methodological training for RCMAR Scientists.